I’m ready to step away from Reddit. I know you can encounter toxic behavior on other platforms too, but I’m just exhausted by the level of negativity there. So, I have two questions for those who have fully transitioned — What prompted your decision to leave? And were you able to get others to join you on Lemmy?
What prompted your decision to leave?
I had been looking for an alternative to Reddit for a while, but heard about Lemmy during the API Exodus of ‘23.
were you able to get others to join you on Lemmy?
I did not try. I know no one on Reddit personally except one of my customers. I have told him in person about Lemmy, but I do not think he would join. I co-modded a sub and the other mod supposedly went to beehaw. But again not someone I knew personally.
For me it was/is exactly the same. I’ve not been using reddit a lot anyway but once I heard about Lemmy I was very quick to move around the API disaster. I also don’t know anyone from reddit so I didn’t have a desire to convince anyone.
I spread the news around in my other networks and I think 2 people joined lemmy, but they would have joined without me advocating for it anyway probably.
I knew of Lemmy before the API exodus, but I didn’t really have a reason to move as I didn’t really use the custom apps. Just with the nastiness of some Redditors, Reddit’s been losing it’s appeal to me, but I’m clinging onto the app for some friends I have there. Hmm.
API exodus-ers unite!
Lemmings from a sinking ship 💪
What prompted your decision to leave?
The API thing last year was my last straw. Finally killing off the last of the “we totally love our users” bit and changing it to a very profit-focused platform was the indication it was time. It wasn’t until after I left did I realize what a toll it was taking on my mental health.
were you able to get others to join you on Lemmy?
Tried, but it didn’t stick. Learned that people will move over naturally. I talk about it if people ask me why I’m not on Reddit, but I never push or actively encourage. I learned that only makes people less likely to try it. Don’t know why, probably some psychological reasoning, but if I show I’m too excited about something they’ll actively avoid it.
Don’t know why, probably some psychological reasoning, but if I show I’m _too_ excited about something they’ll actively avoid it.
I have this feeling too. I think that is because I’m not cool, people don’t want to do the things that the not cool guy is doing.
People who think like this suck honestly.
Realized I replied to the same comment. 🤣
API debacle. Relay went paid.
Added some features I was missing in lemmy mobile to Thunder, and been happy since.
One friend, my sister, and dad, also got lemmy accounts when I told them about it.
Glad to hear that you haven’t made the switch alone!
Reddit blocks tor
Lemmy allows tor
I prefer to minimize the possibility of crazy internet stalkers (and government agents)
Lemmy is better
There’s a lot of people I know and don’t want here.
It would be relatively easy for me to convince some people to come to Lemmy if the Spanish-speaking community were a little bigger. For the moment I will have to be patient and wait for more people to come naturally.
Apollo ended so bye bye Reddit. Never looked back.
I’ve only gotten to use a few custom apps, the API changes didn’t really make sense to me.
Try Voyager app on Lemmy. 👌🏼
Did you mean to resend that? 😆
No, my mistake. Try Voyager again. I love it. The servers are going through upgrades right now on Lemmy so you may experience some delays.
I’ll give it a try then!
Try Voyager app on Lemmy. 👌🏼
My reasons were as you said, toxicity and Reddit’s decision to screw over developers and its users. Never tried to bring someone over. The user base is smaller but it’s almost like going from a loud room of shouting assholes to a small gathering of people that tire of the noise. Haven’t looked back once.
I mentioned it to my friends a couple of times, but I couldn’t offer a reason to move when they are happy with Reddit.
At the moment, there isn’t enough content unique to Lemmy, except for unix_surrealism. I post my favourite Surrealism posts to work channels and hope people are interested enough that they stick around.
The API debacle got me to leave, I had become fond of Infinity for reddit, and saw there was a fork for Lemmy called eternity.
I implored a sub I modded to join me, likely a handful did.
I like it here much better, I can never go back now.
There are communities I enjoy on Reddit so fully committing to Lemmy is a bit hard for me right now. It sucks. 😭
That’s how I feel too. I’m mostly committed to Lemmy, to the point where I even deleted my Reddit account, but I also still lurk in a few, like /r/SWTOR, /r/JPEGXL, and /r/ChangeMyView.
There are communities for the latter two, but the JPEG-XL one is just a mirror community, and the CMV one is pretty damned low-activity.
I’m only familiar with the Change My View sub!
Yeah, JPEGXL is a pretty awesome (tho still very new) image format and I like to keep compatibility advances for it in mind, /r/trans is, well, a community for trans people, and /r/swtor is for the community surrounding the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO.
Don’t worry, I think a lot of people are like that!
View content on other sites, post there when you need to, whatever works for you. I try to only post here, unless there is an urgent reason for me to post there.
10+ years on Reddit and I could not stand what the API changes were going to do, on top of totally hating the experience without an app.
None of my friends were even on Reddit so no problem with them not being on Lemmy ಠ_ಠ
Lemmy feels alot like Reddit in 2012 so I’m hopeful.
On one custom app I used, I think they made it so you can hide a comment completely from view but I also think regular Reddit hasn’t gotten better at that as well.
api changes breaking my ad free client (reddit is fun) got me to leave. never going back
I see, I’ve heard of Rif. I moderate a few communities so I could maybe see if they’d want to move…? Probably not though. Boooo.
just leave them. i thought I would miss some of my communities. but I don’t at all… and the toxic right wing propaganda doesn’t make the front page ever.
I left during the blackout. I occasionally mention it if I’m taking about a post or article, but haven’t tried to get anyone to join. I’m pretty ok that there are just a few million of us.
That’s a great way to put it. I can probably find a community here if I tried hard enough.
Post on the general communities and if it takes off, consider a separate community. It’s sort of like being out in the world and finding people with common interests.
I decided to leave reddit after I switched from lurking to trying to participate more. Most of the comments I made for about six month had little to no interaction, to the point I wondered if I was shadow banned (but wasn’t as far as I could tell). When I was able to interact with another redditor it was rarely pleasant and usually was just someone telling me I was wrong or misunderstanding my comment and arguing against the misunderstanding.
I didn’t have a community of people on reddit to being but I did ask a friend to try it a few months back. She didn’t stick around though because of the lack of content.
If reddit isn’t working for you Lemmy might, but I would encourage you to consider what it is you want from social media and see if there might be a better fit somewhere because Lemmy is just anarchist reddit.
Edit: It’s also worth pointing out the average Lemmy user is much smarter than the average redditor so if the idiots on reddit are your main problem you might find it fits your needs
Yeah, I definitely do a see a change in Lemmy’s environment. Most Redditors I’ve come across are very hostile. I’ve had someone argue with me on the vent sub for ‘bitching,’ when that’s literally what the community is for. xD
Most of that comes from how much smaller Lemmy is than Reddit and the demographic of Lemmy users. I don’t have hard information, but at least anecdotally the average Lemmy user is about ten years older, it seems more men use it even than reddit, and skews extremely left.
The low volume of users means a lot less content and fewer niche communities. The biggest between Lemmy and Reddit though is the lack of bots. There are bots on Lemmy for sure and probably the same kinds that are most of reddit, but there just isn’t as big of an incentive because the ROI is smaller.
I found the same about engagement - every post had 5000 comments but only the top 100 could generate actual conversation, everyone else might as well be talking to themselves
My decision to leave was due to the prevalence of misinformation and / or entirely unrelated comments being upvoted to the top. Fuck that place. It’s just an alternate to Facebook now.
